What is hell is intuit doing telling me I have to upgrade to Win 11, I don't want that POS, they said it's for security, That's OK, i'll take my chances with Win 10.

[vetz76]

I SEE THEY REMOVED THE EMAIL ADDRESS OF THE CUSTOMER SERVICE PERSON.

I received a phone call from TT about this issue of not being able to use Win 10, so email them and if they call you, tell them it's not reasonable to have to buy a new machine just to run their software.

sarah underline kim at intuit dot com  (maybe they won't remove this)

-OR-

Sasan underline Goodarzi at intuit dot com

[mesquitebean]

---

@vetz76 wrote:

I SEE THEY REMOVED THE EMAIL ADDRESS OF THE CUSTOMER SERVICE PERSON.

"They removed..."

      "They" is not a person.   It's an automated forum filter that automatically removes all formatted email addresses, phone numbers, etc.  The forum is widely picked up by Internet search engines, and as such, users who post their email addresses and other personal info in this public forum can be contacted by scammers who could pretend to be from TurboTax.   The filter can't know if someone is posting their own email address or someone else's, so it removes those that it recognizes as an email address.

The best way to escalate an issue at TurboTax is to contact the office of the president of Intuit, which often gets a phone call back from the liaison there.  The contact form and a box for explanation of one's issue is here:

https://www.intuit.com/company/contact/office-of-the-president/

[vetz76]

Well, I re-formatted the addresses so you don't have to look them up.

[JohnQT]

Thanks for posting this link and info, I missed your post when I started a new thread on this a few hours ago but I will add a link to your post here.

[vetz76]

Thanks, we have to push this, it's total nonsense that you have to upgrade to Win 11 from Win10.  If TT if is so concerned about security issues, they can build them into the TT software.

[BobRay]

They already have built the security into the product. If they hadn't, TT 2025 would have been insecure on Windows 10. The claim about security is complete nonsense.

[Mike9241]

it's only for the desktop versions right now. you have several options

1) wait and hope Intuit changes its mind

2) use online

3) switch to another product

4) create a dual boot computer following instructions you can find on the web (my choice - I now have w11 installed on a noncompliant computer) the installation app hacks the registry so W11 doesn't check to make sure the computer meets requirements. (i did install TT 2024 and it works) No guarantee TT won't modify its 2025 app to also check and refuse to install if it's not compliant. on boot you have to choose between the two OS's

5) create a virtual machine. this allows both OS's to run at the same time. I tried to do this but couldn't get it to work 

[vetz76]

That's all well and good (if you have the tech knowledge to do it) but the bottom line is that as customers we should not have to buy a new computer just to run TT's software; if TT is so concerned about security, build it into the TT software and not depend on Microsoft to do it for TT.

[JohnQT]

My guess is that the "security check" for Windows 11 is based on inspection of a few registry entries.  In which case it can easily be bypassed on Windows 10 with a simple double-click of a .reg file, and the original registry settings can be restored by the same simple method.

This assumes that TurboTax for TY2025 is not actually relying on Win32 API properties and/or methods that are specific to Windows 11.  Worst case will be if TurboTax is expecting certain hardware or firmware features (such as a physical TPM chip or BIOS support for a fTPM), in which case we may be forced to buy new hardware vs. just upgrading our current hardware to Windows 11.  We won't know for sure until we get a copy of the product in hand...

Question for TurboTax Experts: When exactly can we expect Intuit to ship the TurboTax Desktop products for Tax Year 2025?

[BobRay]

Excellent points. If you're right and someone finds out what needs to change in the registry, I'll be fine. My computer itself is fully capable of running Windows 11 (though I'm not -- I hate it).   

In fact, it's possible that TT means to say that you must have a computer that's able to run Windows 11, but not actually running it. That would be the best-case scenario for me. In fact, I'm running Windows 10 with a Windows 11 retail key. I just pulled the disk on my old Windows 10 computer, plugged it into  the new computer. It booted right up with all my icons, programs, and data intact. I bought the Windows 11 Key to make sure Microsoft didn't come after me for transferring an OEM Windows license. 

[JohnQT]

"In fact, I'm running Windows 10 with a Windows 11 retail key."

I've gone the other way around and applied a Windows 7 Home Premium key to a Windows 10 install (Home, not IoT Enterprise) which worked just fine.  You'd think that M$ would expect you to pay for such an upgrade, but at this point I think they are happy to just retain customers...

The whole point of me moving my Intuit apps to a Windows 10 VM is to prepare for eventually wiping my physical OS disk and installing a Linux distro.  That will happen if/when M$ somehow forces me to "upgrade" my PC itself to Windows 11.  AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.

[vetz76]

It nice that you have the tech knowledge to do this.

[JohnQT]

If bypassing the TurboTax 2025 check for Windows 11 is as simple as I and some others here expect, then that part of it will be easy-peasy.  Stay Tuned for more info.

Running TurboTax in a virtual machine is admittedly a different level.  You would first want to understand basic hardware virtualization concepts, read about the VirtualBox virtualization app in particular, install it on your PC, and play around with some test virtual machines a bit, before committing to running TurboTax in a VM.  It sounds wild but hardware virtualization like this has been standard practice in the commercial IT world for years now, and apps like VirtualBox have become very user friendly.  Just like TurboTax but without the tax headaches.  😅

[vetz76]

That's all well and good, BUT, at my age I'm not interested in delving into more computer technology, and believe me I'm not afraid of it or unable to deal with it (I was pushing buttons on main frames back in the 60's and 70's). The easy path is for TT to NOT push this nonsense of requiring Win 11 to run it's software.  I'm sure the majority of us with Win 10 machines were pestered by Microsoft to "upgrade" to Win 11, but as some have said, they dislike the Win 11, I for one dislike the fact that it won't run some apps that 10 will.So, TT, pay attention and stand down from your EDICT to "upgrade", else you risk a loss of revenue.

[JohnQT]

@vetz76  I'm in total agreement with you, after retiring from IT I'd rather not mess with computers at all.  Luckily I had more interest as a younger lad and formulated my "escape from Windows via virtual machine" strategy when I still had the mind to do so.

Unfortunately it seems that the market share numbers "just aren't there" for Intuit to continue to support desktop products at all.  Never mind that even though it's becoming a niche product it would still have some market share no matter what.  At this point we should all be familiar with how the bean counters think.  It's what TurboTax is all about after all.